McCotter, who dropped out of the GOP presidential sweepstakes after a disastrous showing in the Ames Straw Poll last August, had briefly considered challenging Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow before deciding to seek a sixth term in the U.S. House earlier this year.

The low-key and witty congressman was expected to coast to a relatively easy re-election victory, but that all changed on Friday. 

According to the Detroit Free Press, McCotter’s campaign may have failed to obtain the 1,000 valid signatures required to appear on the August primary ballot.

According to the Detroit newspaper, McCotter’s campaign submitted the legal limit of 2,000 signatures, but many of them may have been duplicates, in which case both signatures would be tossed out by election officials.

In a statement issued late Friday, the 46-year-old Livonia lawmaker acknowledged problems with his nominating petitions.

“Fully respecting the accuracy and integrity of the Secretary of State’s Office, we will thoroughly review our petition signatures for their sufficiency or insufficiency,” said McCotter. “Out of respect for Memorial Day, an announcement of our findings will be made public on Tuesday.”

If his petitions are deemed insufficient, McCotter can appeal to the state’s Board of Canvassers, which is scheduled to meet the first week in June.

If he is subsequently removed from the GOP primary ballot, the five-term congressman would still have the option of mounting a write-in campaign for his party’s nomination or filing as an independent or third-party candidate prior to the state’s July 19 filing deadline. 

McCotter is reportedly considering the write-in option — a high-stakes gamble that could propel other well-known Republicans to enter the fray as rival write-in candidates.

Kerry Bentivolio, a Vietnam veteran and longtime schoolteacher from Milford, is the only other Republican candidate who filed in the primary.

Meanwhile, the 11th congressional district remains marginally competitive.  McCotter, for example, won with only 51 percent of the vote four years ago.

Not surprisingly, McCotter’s unexpected ballot woes have given the district’s Democrats reason for optimism.  The August 7 Democratic primary has suddenly taken on new significance.

Dr. Syed Taj, a Canton physician who was born and raised in India, is being challenged for the Democratic nomination by Bill Roberts, a young and articulate LaRouche Democrat campaigning on a platform calling for the reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall Act, separating commercial banking from highly-speculative investment banking — the reckless and unregulated “casino capitalism” that created the devastating 2008 financial meltdown — and the establishment of a national credit system. 

Roberts, who lives in Redford, is part of a national slate of congressional candidates sponsored by economist and former presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche, one of the most maligned political figures in American history. 

Unlike the incumbent Republican, Roberts submitted 1,940 signatures with an impressive preliminary validity rate of 74 percent.

The district hasn’t elected a Democratic congressman since the Lyndon Johnson landslide of 1964 when Raymond F. Clevenger — one of Michigan’s “Five Fluke Freshmen” — narrowly defeated a Republican incumbent. 

Roberts, who has been campaigning tirelessly since formally announcing his candidacy in early February, hopes to break that streak in November.  Unlike Clevenger, he’ll owe his good fortune to another Lyndon.

Then again, it might be too soon to count McCotter out.  “I’m from Detroit,” he once famously quipped, “we live to prove the doubters wrong.”

Bittner is the executive director of the Libertarian Party of Georgia.  A special election for the office was triggered when current board member Logan Weber resigned his Ward 1 seat because he moved out of state.

While it seems like a slam dunk, Bittner did caution supporters on his Twitter that an organized write-in candidate might still offer some challenge.

Bittner’s win, when it becomes official, will make him the third elected Libertarian in the state of Georgia according to LP.org.  However, he’ll only join the seven-member board for an abbreviated term, being forced to seek re-election in 2013.

Howe was the party’s nominee for governor in 2000 and 2004, winning about 1.5% in each election.

In the SurveyUSA poll, Howe polled best among male voters, capturing 9% of that group.  She also captured 13% of independent voters.

In a recent Public Policy Polling survey of North Carolina voters in the Presidential race, Libertarian Gary Johnson was at 6%.

The poll asked voters: “If the candidates for President this year were Democrat Barack Obama, Republican Mitt Romney, and Libertarian Gary Johnson, who would you vote for?”

And the results showed likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney with a slight lead over President Obama.

Mitt Romney (R) …………….. 45%
Barack Obama (D) …………… 41%
Gary Johnson (L) ……………. 9%
Undecided …………………….. 6%

Johnson scored 15% support among voters aged 30-to-45 and was at 13% among all male voters.

To secure a spot in the national debates this fall, the Johnson campaign will need to lift their polling numbers above 15% in a series of recognized national surveys.

Despite being the only candidate named on the ballot in Kentucky, the President has failed to secure a resounding victory.  With almost all votes counted, more than 42% of Kentucky Democratic voters have cast their ballots for Uncommitted.

That would mean roughly 29 delegates to the Democratic National Convention were officially awarded to the “Uncommitted” status.

With more than 70% of the vote counted in Arkansas, the President was leading little known attorney John Wolfe by a margin of 59-41%.

That contest could tighten even further as some of the state’s most rural precincts are still yet to report.

Amazingly, Wolfe is currently leading Obama in nearly 30 of the state’s 75 counties.   According to early delegate calculations, if his current vote totals hold steady, Wolfe would have been eligible for 19 delegates to the Democratic National Convention.  Unfortunately, the state Democratic party has already said that Wolfe failed to comply with all paperwork requirements and will not be awarded any representation at the convention. The challenger has told the media he plans to sue the party to secure the delegates he’s won tonight.

icPurple logo

A new SuperPAC has been formed to support independent candidates around the country, including Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher’s for San Diego mayor and Chad Condit’s bid for Congress.  The group, named icPurple, presents itself as the first SuperPAC dedicated to the promotion of centrist and moderate candidates running with no party affiliation.

The committee was created by Gateway founder Ted Waitt, who fronted $300,000 in “seed money” to get the ad buys started.  Thus far, they’ve selected five candidates that they plan to spend money for.  In addition to Fletcher and Condit, icPurple has endorsed Angus King for U.S. Senate in Maine, Ventura County Supervisor Linda Parks who is running for an open congressional seat, and Chad Walsh who is seeking in the California state house.

The group’s name is rooted in the result of what comes from combining the colors red and blue, representing Republicans and Democrats.

Their website is located at icPurple.org.

On the Republican side, Mitt Romney is expected to amass large wins over 2 opponents who have suspended their campaigns and a third, Congressman Ron Paul, who is focusing only on amassing delegates at state conventions and party meetings.  Although Paul might perform little better than expected in Kentucky, a state that his son represents in the U.S. Senate, it’s unlikely the presumptive Republican nominee will have to sweat out tonight’s results for more than a minute or two after the polls close.

The same cannot be said about President Obama, where the real curiosity tonight is the Democratic primary in Arkansas.  Little-known Tennessee attorney John Wolfe will appear on the ballot against Obama, and voters unhappy with the President will be without the option to vote uncommitted.  Just weeks after West Virginia Democrats gave 41% of their support to a Federal inmate, Arkansas might actually deliver the President an unthinkable defeat on his road to renomination.  Some limited polling has shown Wolfe withing striking distance and many Republicans are now contemplating strategic cross-over voting to help lift Wolfe to victory and deal the Obama campaign a black eye.

Wolfe, however, will not be able to win any convention delegates even if he somehow carries the state tonight.  The party has determined that the challenger didn’t file all of the required paperwork according to the state party, a problem that has plagued Wolfe over the years in his other bids for office.  Failing to file campaign finance documents in various bids for office, including his current run for President, Wolfe was also blocked from receiving the four delegates he won with a 12% showing in the Louisiana primary in March because he did not file all of the required documents.

Wolfe has threatened to file a lawsuit.

“They’ll be going to Little Rock federal court. I don’t want to litigate. I’m a lawyer. I can draw the papers up. If they want to see what the judge says, that’s fine,” Wolfe said. “I think it’s going to be a very, very close night tomorrow night. I think people are going to be surprised. I think people from Texas are going to hear the echoes from Arkansas.”

Next week’s Texas primary will feature Obama and a trio of opponents on the ballot, including Wolfe.

Campaigning as “Nobody’s Boy,” the 49-year-old Flaherty defeated Denenberg, a popular former state insurance commissioner, by 38,277 votes in a four-way Democratic primary that included former U.S. Rep. James M. Quigley and the Rev. Frank Mesaros of Harrisburg, an Eastern Orthodox priest.

Flaherty and Denenberg both waged extremely frugal campaigns.  Incredibly, neither candidate spent more than $50,000 in the hotly-contested primary.

Denenberg, a nationally-recognized consumer advocate who claimed Ralph Nader as his biggest fan, led the race until the early morning hours — at one point amassing a 30,000-vote lead over the reform-minded Pittsburgh mayor — before several late-reporting western Pennsylvania counties put Flaherty over the top.

The official results, which were mildly disputed by Denenberg, gave the immensely popular Pittsburgh mayor 485,358 votes to Denenberg’s 447,081.  The little-known Mesaros finished a distant third with 64,870 votes while the largely inactive Quigley, who refused to accept any campaign contributions, brought up the rear with 34,489 votes.  Flaherty enjoyed a 68,000-vote margin in his native Allegheny County.

“This further confirms my views on the whole election process,” grumbled a disappointed Denenberg on learning of the certified primary results nearly six weeks later.  Denenberg believed Flaherty’s statewide margin of victory should have been 18,600 votes or less.  “I don’t think the safeguards are there to protect the vote count,” complained Denenberg.  “They only give you 20 days after the election [to contest a nomination] and then they don’t even tell you the vote.”

Pennsylvania’s 1974 U.S. Senate race was the first of three statewide campaigns in which the fiercely independent Flaherty captured the Democratic nomination in highly contested primaries only to fall short in the general election.  In addition to losing to the liberal Schweiker — one of the few Republicans to make Nixon’s infamous “Enemies List” — the two-term mayor also lost a bid for governor in 1978 and fell to Republican Arlen Specter in the state’s 1980 U.S. Senate race.

Mentioned as a possible Democratic candidate for President in 1972 by a major news magazine, Flaherty, the son of Irish immigrants, first burst on the scene with a spectacular victory in Pittsburgh’s 1969 mayoralty contest against the remnants of former Gov. David Lawrence’s political machine — a once-powerful organization that had produced every mayor of Pittsburgh since the Great Depression.

Stitching together an unlikely coalition that included supporters of 1968 presidential contenders Eugene McCarthy and George C. Wallace, Flaherty polled 62 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary against the organization-backed candidate and coasted to an easy victory over Republican John Tabor in November.  He was re-elected four years later, winning the Democratic, Republican and ballot-qualified Constitutional Party nominations — the latter two by write-in votes.

As mayor, Flaherty earned a reputation as a fiscal conservative, slashing the city’s budget by twenty percent while eliminating the wage tax and reducing property taxes.  He also trimmed the city payroll by 1,400, including 153 firemen and 82 police officers.  Determined to streamline city government while leading by example, Flaherty also drove his own vehicle on city business to save taxpayers’ money.

“He was a brilliant pioneer in the new fiscal populist mayoral style,” remarked Terry Nichols Clark, a sociology professor at the University of Chicago who studied Flaherty’s administration.  “He invented a whole style of politics … he came from a left Democratic Party background and he combined it with fiscal conservatism, fighting business, fighting labor unions, fighting interests groups of all sorts.”

Flaherty, who served briefly as a deputy attorney general in the Carter Administration and was later elected to three relatively uneventful terms as an Allegheny County commissioner, died in 2005 at the age of eighty.

“I seek the Presidency with a firm sense of who I am, what I stand for and what I can and will do to advance the cause of this great nation, and the cause of peace stability on this fragile planet,” declared the freshman Illinois senator in a speech at Southern Illinois University.

A former small-town newspaper publisher — he purchased the Troy Tribune when he was only 19 — and author of eleven books, the 58-year-old Simon was an unabashed liberal.  Among other things, his platform included a proposal mirrored after President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Great Depression-era Works Progress Administration (WPA), guaranteeing a job for every American who wanted one.

“We shall spend money either to create more jobs or more jails,” said Simon, ‘“and I seek an America with more jobs.”

A former state legislator and ex-lieutenant governor, Simon had served ten years in the U.S. House of Representatives before narrowly defeating the three-term Percy in 1984 to become the state’s junior senator.

In joining the crowded Democratic field in 1988, Simon urged party activists not to forsake their party’s rich heritage.

“Some advise us to adjust our sails to the prevailing winds, however they may be blowing,” he said.  “I do not join those who want the Democratic Party to forget its heritage in order to become more acceptable to the wealthy and powerful.  If we do that we will lose our soul and do a great disservice to the nation.  I’m glad there is a Republican Party, but one Republican Party is enough.”

Winning only in his home state’s March 15 primary — a contest in which he fended off a spirited challenge from the Rev. Jesse Jackson — Simon suspended his bid for the Democratic nomination three weeks later.  He had accumulated 166 delegates, including 47 yet-to-be-selected at-large delegates from Illinois, at the time of his withdrawal.

“I feel like a guinea pig, but I understand why they did it,” explained the former Louisiana governor.   Roemer said he was grateful for the opportunity to seek the organization’s presidential nomination — a prize that originally meant ballot access in all fifty states and the District of Columbia.

A candidate needed 10,000 “clicks” of support (with a minimum of at least 1,000 in each of ten states) to qualify for the Americans Elect online nominating process.  Some candidates, including former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson and Boston University economics professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff, needed five times that number to qualify.  Roemer, who has been campaigning for the presidency almost non-stop for seventeen straight months, was the closest to reaching that elusive goal, garnering nearly 6,300 supporters by early Thursday afternoon.

Despite his disappointment at today’s development, Roemer has no immediate plans to end his quest for the presidency.

“We’ll take a couple of days to reassess the campaign,” said Roemer, 68, who has steadfastly maintained that he was “running to win.”  The Harvard-educated banker and small businessman said that he hasn’t ruled out the possibility of putting together a coalition candidacy that would include the nearly-defunct Reform Party and a number of other ballot-qualified third parties around the country.

The Reform Party, founded in the aftermath of Ross Perot’s 1992 independent bid for the White House, has encouraged Roemer to stay in the hunt.

“It is our hope that, regardless of what happens with Americans Elect, Gov. Roemer will continue to seek the Reform Party’s nomination,” party chairman David Collison told Uncovered Politics last week.   “We believe that having more credible choices at our nominating convention, and more choices at the ballot box, are critical steps to change the political direction of our nation toward real reform.”

The Reform Party will hold its national convention in Philadelphia Aug. 10-12.